Ted Belman on Israpundit made the following comment which I feel has to be challenged in a serious and constructive manner because it deals with deep and long held ideas about the role of American Imperialism, as opposed to the American people, towards Israel.
The key section of his comment was as follows:
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As far as the upcoming presidential elections are concerned, McCain recognizes the Islamic threat and that is a good start the others don’t. No one will talk about variations in the two-state solution. It is too hot to touch. So I support McCain also because of who supports him, ie conservative Americans and reject Obama because of his base.
Now on the question of US imperialism I would put the question another way, I prefer the US to remain active in the world rather than to with draw or seek consensus. Obama wants consensus. What troubles me about American “imperialism” is that they select Islamists as their allies. They really have a US/ Saudi alliance that is no good for Israel. I see all this. If the US were to pull out of the ME someone else would move in and that be worse for Israel. Just the other day I heard a theory that Germany is supporting Iran by protecting them on sanctions and Germany is by far their largest partner. When Iran moves into Iraq, Germany goes with them. Germany is also very close to Turkey. So you see a new axis forming. Germany was also very active in dismantling Serbia. So to my mind imperialism isn’t the problem. Nations do what nations do. They form alliances.
Whatever happens to Kosovo will not determine what happens to Israel. Preventing the partition of Serbia will not prevent the attempt to partition Israel. Do I think that Russia will reward Israel’s support for keeping Serbia whole by agreeing to stand with Israel’s annexation of Judea and Samaria? No. Even if she was willing to, who would trust her?
Now there are two ways to look at US policy dealing with Israel. One we could view it as US policy for decades if not for ever to shrink Israel if not eradicate it. I have written many times making this argument. Or we could say, that the US just wants the conflict to be solved with or without a Palestinian state. But even this gives little cause for hope. The key for me is to emphasize that Israel, a strong Israel, serves American interests. This is what The Israel Lobby, Power and Obama dispute. This is the heart of the battle.
In this regard, I believe that Israel should wean itself of the $3 billion dollars it receives from the US. It would give it economic independence and political independence. That would in no way lessen the argument that we are stronger together but it would undercut the arguments of The Israel Lobby
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http://www.israpundit.com/2008/?p=472#comments
As part of the discussion I replied. My reply was very hurried and I have changed only a few words.
start reply here (to end)
You are very devoted and you have built a strong network. But it is a network which can lead to the graves of millions of Jews, never mind the rest of us who will tumble into the pit as well.
This is because your programme is wrong and dangerous.
Look at this paragraph above, (your first 4 paragraph deals with your networking)
<blockquote>”Now on the question of US imperialism I would put the question another way, I prefer the US to remain active in the world rather than to with draw or seek consensus. Obama wants concensus. What troubles me about American “imperialism” is that they select Islamists as their allies. They really have a US/ Saudi alliance that is no good for Israel. I see all this. If the US were to pull out of the ME someone else would move in and that would be worse for Israel. Just the other day I heard a theory that Germany is supporting Iran by protecting them on sanctions and Germany is by far their largest partner. When Iran moves into Iraq, Germany goes with them. Germany is also very close to Turkey. So you see a new axis forming. Germany was also very active in dismantling Serbia. So to my mind imperialism isn’t the problem. Nations do what nations do. They form alliances.”</blockquote>
Actually the issue which Ted Belman raises here of the alliance of the German ruling class, that is the Germans who created the Nazis, being in alliance with Iran is very important
Yet we say here on 4international that:
US Imperialism and its danger to the Jews IS the problem.
What Ted Belman is doing is looking at the issue from a subjective and essentially superficial viewpoint. In order to understand anything to do with society, and in particular the development of class based societies, from slavery, through feudalism, and now capitalism, the phenomenon has to be looked at and understood historically. It is very dangerous to just go on subjective impressions as they occur to the individual on this or that occasion. It has to be rooted in the science, really the science of historical materialism.
To understand how wrong this is you have to go back to basics, to the analysis of capitalism made by the master in the field, one Karl Marx and his close friend and collaborator Engels.
Capitalism grows up in the nation state but even then they pointed out in one of their first documents, the Communist Manifesto, that very soon it creates a world market; this world market stands in opposition to the nation state and its market. This world market cannot be avoided. This is essentially why the Stalinist theory (followed by the Maoist variety) of insular nationalism eventually came a cropper. They tried to build socialism “in one country”. The world market which was created by capitalism, a truly revolutionary development, is king.
Now this actual development of the world market HAS to be looked at historically. Britain was the supreme Imperialist power, and its role was taken over by the US, a point eventually reached in 1945, because Britain emerged from the war greatly weakened, and America greatly strengthened.
This is where Ted Belman goes so grievously wrong with potentially grave consequences. It is not at all a question of all of these nation states today being equal. US capitalism is definitely the leader and it knows it, and it is conscious, very conscious, that it took over the mantle of leadership from the British Empire.
Notice how Ted Belman places Germany seeking an alliance with Iran as being the equal of the US. Nothing could be further from the truth. Germany was created post 1945 by America, the German ruling class of today, laced as it was by Nazis was set up in the years after the war. And if Germany is seeking an alliance with Iran then this does not at all run counter to the wishes of US Imperialism.
There is one and only one superpower in the world today which is in the dominant position and that is US Imperialism. It calls the shots. This is agreed with by Francisco Gil White and he is opposed to my site’s position on Marxist analysis. He arrives at this simply by his own analysis of facts. No dogma there!
It is the dominant Imperialist power but its position is continually under threat. The world market does not allow even the US any respite and the US is threatened on many fronts.
Ted Belman of Israpundit was wrong on every aspect of US Imperialism. Obama, no more than Clinton and McCain, do not seek “consensus”. They seek alliance with the deepest forms of reaction. All of them do. To understand Clinton understand that she did not speak to Bill Clinton for 8 months post the cigar incident, then one morning came into his study roaring at him to “bomb the Serbs”. As regards Obama, it is not that he seeks consensus with the worst forms of reaction, he is right out of that milieu. He is Islamofascist. We know the position of McCain, he played a leading role in the whole destruction of Yugoslavia and the murder of Milosevic.
All of these American contenders for President are tarred with the same brush. They have all showed the world that their politics is of a deep reaction. it would be an absolute tragedy for the Jewish people if any Jewish organization supported any of these Democratic or Republican leaders.
If any Jewish organizations should line up and support any of these leaders, Barak, Clinton or McCain they will be stabbing the Jewish people in the back. It will be a very, very serious set back for the Jewish struggle and for Israel.
I can understand the thought process of Jewish people like Ted Belman when they put forward the illusion that there may be something good in McCain when it comes to Israel. That is the image that the US ruling class has created over many decades. This is the image that the US ruling class are the friends of Israel.
A magnificent study of this has been carried out on the pages of www.hirhome.com by Francisco Gil White. This study must become a standard in the struggle for clarity on the issue.
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Everybody knows that the US says it supports Israel. But actions speak louder than words. What is the evidence of US actions? In this piece I provide a chronological list of relevant US policies over the years.
I am hoping that this piece will begin a debate. It is not finished, and the research relevant to its claims is ongoing. I shall be updating the piece as I gather more data. But I have already assembled quite a lot, below, and what I have is certainly sufficient to challenge the common view. I believe, in fact, that what I have presented below is already sufficient to refute the common view many times over, and the compilation of these documented facts came as a big eye-opener. Hopefully this documentation will begin a serious debate on this question, rather than an automatic assumption based on official claims of US support for Israel – which claims are cheaply, and therefore easily, made.
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http://www.hirhome.com/israel/hirally.htm
Furthermore, Francisco Gil White, in the very next paragraph spells out that although the American rulers are the enemies of Israel, this very definitely does not apply historically to the American people, who have proved to be the real allies of Israel and of the Jews, whenever they understand the treachery of their American ruling class.
begin quote here
It is important to remember that what is examined here is the behavior of the US foreign policy Establishment, which is secretive. The evidence therefore speaks to what is, and has been, the true position of the US ruling elite with regard to Israel and the Jewish people. It does not speak to the position of the American people, many of whom, I believe, will be outraged to find that, as I document below, the US specializes in attacking Israel. In fact the section on 1947-48 contains dramatic evidence that ordinary Americans tend not to favor the anti-Jewish policies of the US ruling elite.
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(ibid)
In answer to the various position put forward, especially the position of Ted Belman of Israpundit, that Israel must continue to form an alliance with US Imperialist class, even a close alliance, I put forward certain ideas to do with the independence of Israel:
1 Israel must be independent
2. That cannot happen with present leadership or anything like it
What does it take to make Israel an independent country, able if it wants to take a position of alliance with Russia and the Serbs on the issue of Kosovo, an issue of principle, but mainly as an example of this independence.
Or with the 2 billion semi Buddhists of China on defence of the Olympic games…THEIR Olympic Games.
Well you need leadership.
It does not matter how many are in your network if it is not based on this premise, to make Israeli nationalism an independent entity, it will fail.
So then, how many in your group will go along with the demand that Israel must oppose the Kosovo breakaway?
There is need for a new organization to unite those forces in struggle in defence of Israel on a programme based on principle.
Such as
Oppose the Palestinian state
Oppose Kosovo Independence
Oppose the creation of Islamofascist states by the US and EU
Unity with the Iranian youth, workers, students and homosexuals in their battle against Fascist Mullahs
Call on Arab masses to break from Antisemitism and Islamofascism, overthrow their reactionary rulers and join with Israel, in defence of Israel.
<strong>Israel must destroy the Iranian bomb and must prevent at all costs any of the Arab League states acquiring the Nuclear Bomb.</strong>
To carry out this programme is needed first of all an organization, It was called by Trotsky a United Front. It is made up of all those who will fight against Imperialism and Fascism and it has certain minimum demands. Inside this United Front there is full freedom of discussion.
In Israel what do we aim for? The situation in Israel is becoming totally critical and every moment is a moment of danger.
It is vital to organize the forces around certain demands and aims.
Firstly I reject position of an Israpundit commenter called Yamit82 not to take the war against the Shas leadership. The supporters of Shas must be mobilised rapidly against their leaders who are passive and opportunist rascals. In fact this person WHO IS UNDOUBTEDLY a very religious Jewish person has no political programme to challenge the traitorous leadership of either Shas or the Labourist Peacenik Movement. His main political programme is to wait for the ambitious Barak to break from the Olmert Coalition. And then what! Yamit82 also is on record as supporting McCain
Secondly total opposition to the thinking of Isseroff and the Israeli Labour Party, Communist Party (not Communist but Stalinist) and the Peace Movement.
Seek a unity between revolutionary atheists and true patriotic religious Jews in a fight to create an Israel which wages active war on antisemitism. This will entail a government which will close down for starters Haaretz, without any compensation, and its machinery taken over and run by revolutionary Israelis. The immediate expulsion from the country of traitors and antisemites like Pappe, Hass, Levy and many others in the Media and in Academia. The insistence that there is no place in Israel for antisemites. Arabs who do not fight in the Army for Israel to be immediately expelled. It is a treasonable offense. The same applies to Jews.
And the Israel to fight for? An Israel in which religion is a private matter and where antisemitism is outlawed in which, then, Jews have a space to follow their ancient religion and traditions without molestation.
These are just some rough notes as I replied hurriedly to the Israpundit post above.
We have no time to lose.
4international 